DRINKING WATER

GettyImages-2153059351-gloved-hand-with-test-tube-testing-water From Utility To Ally: Smart Water Management For Customer Satisfaction

Smart water technologies improve customer satisfaction through accurate billing, leak detection, and data-driven insights, helping utilities build trust, reduce losses, and enhance operational efficiency.

DRINKING WATER CASE STUDIES AND WHITE PAPERS

  • Gulf Of Mexico's Hypoxic Zone Larger Than Ever

    Last year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recorded the largest hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico since monitoring began 32 years ago. Hypoxic waters, often referred to as dead zones, have dissolved oxygen concentrations of less than 2-3 ppm. They are caused by eutrophication or excess nutrients that promote algal growth in water bodies. As algae decompose, they consume oxygen creating dead zones.

  • Municipal Water Reuse Done Right: Lessons In Efficiency

    California water reuse program provides multiple benefits, serving as a model for other municipalities.

  • KETOS SHIELD Delivers Insight Into Critical Water Quality Parameters

    Food company leverages the KETOS SHIELD to stabilize water quality, reduce chemical costs, and ensure compliance with proactive water quality monitoring.

  • How To Filter Iron & Manganese From Well Water With Manganese Dioxide Filter Media

    There are various treatment processes that are used to remove iron and manganese from ground water for potable water supplies. Iron and manganese are typically found in groundwater in a dissolved state and the water may appear clear. While there are various less common treatment methods used (such as ion exchange), most treatment systems for iron and manganese oxidize the ferrous state (clear iron) to a ferric state so the solid particles can then be filtered out. 

  • Safety, Savings, Synergy: The Aquana-Itron Partnership Reshaping Utilities

    In the ever-evolving realm of smart water solutions, Aquana's AquaFlex™  Actuator Valve (AVS) emerges as a transformative force, promising heightened operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness for water utilities. This American-designed and manufactured remote water shutoff valve, seamlessly integrated into Itron’s AMI network, is poised to reshape the landscape of utility operations.

  • Taking An Affordable Approach To Smart Water And IoT Technology

    Here are several ways that even smaller utilities can implement affordable technologies to improve visibility into what’s happening in key areas of their systems.

  • Harness The Power Of One Bacterium To Remove PFAS From The Environment

    Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a family of synthetic organic molecules, which are not naturally occurring in nature. Due to the strong carbon-fluorine bond present in these molecules, they are especially long-lived once released into the environment and are resistant to regular chemical remediation methods.

  • How Targeted Investments By Private Water Can Boost Public Support

    A significant number of utilities operating in smaller regions where resources are strained, and where the daily business of water treatment can be exceedingly expensive, have turned to privately owned companies to manage their drinking water and wastewater operations. The downside is that this arrangement also tends to bring heavy scrutiny from a public that expects the provider to put service above the bottom line. Fortunately, targeted investments in solutions can address the issue.

  • Pipeline Management Through Measurement

    Pressure transients can be reduced through changes in pump operations and valve usage. Intelligent pipeline monitoring, combining pressure data with analytics, helps utilities prevent problems and educate operators and customers.

  • Mueller Has You Covered For Domestic Products

    Since 1857, Mueller Water Products have been helping municipalities increase operational efficiencies, improve customer service and prioritize capital spending. Throughout this time Mueller has played an essential role in the research, development and manufacturing of products and services used in water systems across North America.

DRINKING WATER APPLICATION NOTES

  • Improved Determination Of Volatile Organic Compounds In Water By SPME And GC/MS
    6/21/2018

    The analysis of water for volatile organic compounds is important due to their toxicity. The current methods for this determination lack of sensitivity, selectivity or capability for automation. This paper presents the new ISO 17943 Standard using Solid Phase Microextraction (SPME) and GC/MS. The sample preparation by SPME enables limits of detection and easy automation of the whole method. GC/MS provides the required sensitivity and selectivity. This ISO Standard was validated by an interlaboratory trial, which results confirm the outstanding performance for this method.

  • Ultrasonic Level Measurement In Water And Wastewater Plants
    5/19/2016

    Radar technology is often viewed as the “best” method of level measurement, but this isn’t necessarily true in the water industry.

  • Flow Meter Enhances Chlorination System Performance For Municipal Water Department
    12/12/2017

    The water municipality at a mid-size city in the Western region of the U.S. serving a population of about 180,000 people needed to address a chlorine disinfection system problem at one of its water treatment plants.

  • Remote Monitoring And Maintenance Through Digitalization
    3/17/2020

    Siemens offers to our customers the ability to make both process measurements, and to remotely monitor the activity and health of instrumentation, whether you have a SCADA, PLC or DCS system, or not. By utilizing Siemens’ ability to offer unparalleled flow, level, pressure, temperature, and weight measurement we can provide a broad range of process measurements and offer unequaled monitoring of the health and performance of those products.

  • Pile Cloth Media Filtration Removes 97% Of Microplastics From Wastewater
    12/6/2023

    Learn about filtering microplastics from industrial wastewater prior to discharge, and how this is one way to effectively reduce the volume of this waste material from entering our surface water.

  • Protection Of Membrane Systems Utilized For Municipal Water
    12/1/2020

    As water scarcity issues around the world become more acute, more municipalities are having to turn to alternative water sources for potable water supplies. Also, many municipalities in coastal areas are seeing the quality of their water sources degrade as sea water intrusion occurs.

  • Application Note: YSI Real-Time Water Quality Monitoring And The IPSWATCH-EMPACT Program
    12/28/2005
    The Ipswich and Parker Rivers watersheds lie only a short distance north of Boston, MA. The first settlements in these watersheds began in the early 1600s. Since that time, residents have relied heavily on the natural resources of the Parker and Ipswich Rivers, their coastal estuaries and Plum Island Sound, which is known as the Great Marsh. This ecosystem has been designated and protected by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC).
  • Harmonics Reduction Methods
    4/17/2017

    There are several basic methods for reducing harmonic voltage and current distortion from nonlinear distribution loads such as adjustable frequency drives (AFDs). Following is a description of each method, along with each method’s advantages and disadvantages.

  • Organics Aren't Invisible: A Guide for Simple Online Monitoring
    5/13/2019

    Control of dissolved organics has been one of the highest priority concerns for most water treatment plants for over 20 years. Organics monitoring is an even more critical issue today in the face of more stringent regulations and concerns around trace organics, emerging contaminants, and even counter-terrorism or water security. Despite the critical need, many plants still rely primarily on turbidity for monitoring and process control.

  • Application Bulletin: Reverse Osmosis
    3/19/2008

    Osmosis is the phenomenon of lower dissolved solids in water passing through a semi-permeable membrane into higher dissolved solids water until a near equilibrium is reached

DRINKING WATER PRODUCTS

The OPTISONIC 6300 P is a portable, battery-powered ultrasonic clamp-on flowmeter for temporary flow measurement of (non-)conductive liquids. It can be used at virtually any location and without process interruption or need to cut pipes. Due to its flexibility, the meter is equally suited for comparative measurements on stationary measuring equipment (e.g. pumps, flowmeters etc.) or for use as a short-term replacement of faulty devices. As standard the clamp-on flowmeter is also provided with a measurement option for thermal energy applications.

The AquaDrum® Pressure Series cloth media filter is a pressurized vessel consisting of a perforated, vertically oriented drum utilizing OptiFiber® pile cloth filtration media.

For financial leaders and engineers, every investment must drive efficiency, reliability, and long-term savings. Pinnacle Ozone Solutions delivers cutting-edge ozone systems designed to reduce costs, improve performance, and future-proof operations.

Endress+Hauser releases the Memograph M RSG45 Advanced Data Manager DIN rail version, an intelligent remote device with extensive communication capabilities, making it ideal for IIoT applications and use as an edge device for getting data to cloud-based servers. Thanks to its intuitive operation, Memograph M adapts quickly and easily to any application. The process values are clearly presented on the display and logged safely, limits are monitored and analyzed.

AqueoUS Vets is a multidisciplinary firm that focuses on standard and customized water treatment systems. We offer a superior line of products for pumping, conveyance, filtration, and storage for dewatering projects.

LeakFX is a data analysis tool for water utilities to quickly summarize, categorize, and prioritize suspected water leaks in their distribution system.  This new tool saves water utilities hours of individual logger analysis every day.  Instead of selecting logger by logger to view leak information, LeakFX combines all suspected leaks in one streamlined report.

LATEST INSIGHTS ON DRINKING WATER

DRINKING WATER VIDEOS

See how SIWA MDM Event and Data Action Management (EDAM) helps utilities detect anomalies and identify service points with potential issues. With EDAM, utilities can define a set of conditions or rules that SIWA MDM meter data management uses to analyze data and events such as water leaks and missing reads.

See how SIWA MDM user experience is easy with various billing tiles and screens to help optimize the billing processes. Quickly see billing readiness, request activity in a highly configurable dashboard.

The Orange County Water District (OCWD) has long been an innovative leader in indirect potable reuse. An integral component of its Groundwater Replenishment System (GWRS) – a 100 million gallon per day advanced water purification facility – is reverse osmosis membrane technology.

V-Bio Polyethylene Encasement is the latest scientific advancement in corrosion control for ductile iron pipe.  In this interview with Water Online, Maury Gaston of American Ductile Iron Pipe and American SpiralWeld Pipe talks about the many benefits of iron pipe and the company’s improved polyethylene encasement, including how its revolutionary formulation allows for complete confidence on the part of the owner, engineer and municipality that no matter how aggressive the soils, the rugged iron pipe installed will last for generations. 

Scientists are developing robots that might someday be able to creep through the pitch-black mines to help prevent spills. A 2015 spill from Colorado’s Gold King Mine unleashed 3 million gallons of water that fouled rivers in three states with toxins.

ABOUT DRINKING WATER

In most developed countries, drinking water is regulated to ensure that it meets drinking water quality standards. In the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administers these standards under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA)

Drinking water considerations can be divided into three core areas of concern:

  1. Source water for a community’s drinking water supply
  2. Drinking water treatment of source water
  3. Distribution of treated drinking water to consumers

Drinking Water Sources

Source water access is imperative to human survival. Sources may include groundwater from aquifers, surface water from rivers and streams and seawater through a desalination process. Direct or indirect water reuse is also growing in popularity in communities with limited access to sources of traditional surface or groundwater. 

Source water scarcity is a growing concern as populations grow and move to warmer, less aqueous climates; climatic changes take place and industrial and agricultural processes compete with the public’s need for water. The scarcity of water supply and water conservation are major focuses of the American Water Works Association.

Drinking Water Treatment

Drinking Water Treatment involves the removal of pathogens and other contaminants from source water in order to make it safe for humans to consume. Treatment of public drinking water is mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the U.S. Common examples of contaminants that need to be treated and removed from water before it is considered potable are microorganisms, disinfectants, disinfection byproducts, inorganic chemicals, organic chemicals and radionuclides.

There are a variety of technologies and processes that can be used for contaminant removal and the removal of pathogens to decontaminate or treat water in a drinking water treatment plant before the clean water is pumped into the water distribution system for consumption.

The first stage in treating drinking water is often called pretreatment and involves screens to remove large debris and objects from the water supply. Aeration can also be used in the pretreatment phase. By mixing air and water, unwanted gases and minerals are removed and the water improves in color, taste and odor.

The second stage in the drinking water treatment process involves coagulation and flocculation. A coagulating agent is added to the water which causes suspended particles to stick together into clumps of material called floc. In sedimentation basins, the heavier floc separates from the water supply and sinks to form sludge, allowing the less turbid water to continue through the process.

During the filtration stage, smaller particles not removed by flocculation are removed from the treated water by running the water through a series of filters. Filter media can include sand, granulated carbon or manufactured membranes. Filtration using reverse osmosis membranes is a critical component of removing salt particles where desalination is being used to treat brackish water or seawater into drinking water.

Following filtration, the water is disinfected to kill or disable any microbes or viruses that could make the consumer sick. The most traditional disinfection method for treating drinking water uses chlorine or chloramines. However, new drinking water disinfection methods are constantly coming to market. Two disinfection methods that have been gaining traction use ozone and ultra-violet (UV) light to disinfect the water supply.

Drinking Water Distribution

Drinking water distribution involves the management of flow of the treated water to the consumer. By some estimates, up to 30% of treated water fails to reach the consumer. This water, often called non-revenue water, escapes from the distribution system through leaks in pipelines and joints, and in extreme cases through water main breaks.

A public water authority manages drinking water distribution through a network of pipes, pumps and valves and monitors that flow using flow, level and pressure measurement sensors and equipment.

Water meters and metering systems such as automatic meter reading (AMR) and advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) allows a water utility to assess a consumer’s water use and charge them for the correct amount of water they have consumed.